Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday November 11, 2010 @04:08PM
from the try-the-bigfoot-burger dept.

eldavojohn writes "A lizard long served on the menu in the Mekong Delta has recently caught the attention of scientists when it was noted that all animals in the species appeared identical as well as female. The species appears to be a hybrid of two other species (like a mule or liger). But the curious thing is that this hybrid isn't sterile — it reproduces asexually. The species, known for some time in Vietnam, has now officially been named Leiolepis ngovantrii."

A good nature vs nurture experiment! One of the clones is bound to randomly think up some better tactics every so often, and in my case any clones who did well would start to improve in confidence and rise to the top of the ranks, while the others would feel demoralised for a while and have a tougher time of it. It must be pretty embarrassing getting repeatedly beat by yourself.

Who is to say we don't?
Parthenogensis, while generally (allegedly) uncommon outside of invertebrates, is nothing new. If one were given to biblical pontifications, you could say that it's even been documented in humans. I'm more inclined to believe that things I've read in books that were several thousand years old were written due to lies made by an ashamed couple, but given the lack of 'medical science' that we presently have compared to then, I would be a fool to completely write it off. If it's still

Eh. If you're going to take the "you can't prove it DOESN'T happen" approach, then we may as well assume that some humans can outrun speeding bullets, stop locomotives dead in their tracks, and leap tall buildings in a single bound. After all, given the lack of 'medical science' that we presently have compared to what we'll have in a hundred years, you'd be a fool to completely write it off, right?

You wouldn't' be a fool to write it off after you studies the part of the bible and that part of the world at that time. Assuming there were a 'Joseph' and 'Mary' it would be far more likely they made up the story so she wouldn't be killed.

Of course, taking a pregnant woman through that part of the world during that time would really mean the husband would be a childless widower when he arrived. SO the whole thing is ridiculous. And before some one parrots what there religious leader says at me, the census

Quoting the CNN article
Grismer complained that he had to hold his breath while eating the local dish to appear polite to the restaurant owners."You take a bite out of it and it feels like something very old and dead in your mouth," he said.

In an ironic twist that any American who has visited Vietnam can attest to, the KFC in the socialist republic is literally finger-licking good. It is amazing how good the southeast asian (non-vietnamese) imported chicken is. I think it's from Thailand or something. You can mock the Colonel, but imagine his 11 herbs and spices on really, really good chicken meat.

Of course, what gets the locals in the door at KFC here is that the Colonel kinda looks like Uncle Ho - same beard,and his hair isn't so obvious in

It tastes quite good, really. It tastes best when fried. It is crispy and sweet, like snakes.
I used to hunts these lizards and ate them once in a while but back then (more than 20 years ago) few people ate them unless they had Asthma. It is an effective medicine to treat Asthma.

I really enjoy your comments! I am a long time/. reader but have never posted a comment. Yes, I created this account to specifically post my comments on this topic. I am a native Vietnamese speaker too who used to live in Can Tho city - a city that is right at Mekong Delta. When I was a teenager hunting these lizards was my favorite activity after school. They run very fast, they are usually on the ground but they can climb trees as fast. And their bites can be lethal, or so I thought (there was a rumor that when they bite you, you had to drink a mouthful of water quickly; otherwise, if the lizards drink the water before you do, you die !:-(
Like I said their meat tastes quite good, actually very good (otherwise, they wouldn't be on the menu) but the main reason I like to hunt them because catching them are fun andI can sell them for a few bucks (we call it Dong in Vietnam)

"Rural people, even western people, see things every day in their environment that they assume is well known, and never bother to document. When noticed "scientists" it somehow becomes a discovery."

There's a reason for that. If you or I or a local group of people know something, great. But it's local, and limited, and easy to wipe out. Once that knowledge escapes that small group, either by the actions of that group or by an external factor it becomes something greater: part of the shared knowledge of humanity from which someone with no connection to the initial source of information can nonetheless make use of. For instance I'm working on a paper with a Chinese collaborator about the traditional use of certain plants by local farmers to combat pest insects. We're describing what those local farmers are doing (and probably have been doing for centuries) and providing an additional biochemical perspective; this knowledge will for the first time be available globally. It could lead to new insecticides, or perhaps the wider adoption of these plants themselves as organic insecticidal agents, and either or both could be done far outside the isolated community in which the use of these plants was found. This work is just a tiny part of a much larger, decades-long, global research effort by thousands of scientists (note lack of scare quotes) to try and take traditional medicine and other practices (including westerners: aspirin [wikipedia.org], for example), discover what works, how it works, and make that knowledge generally available. How's that for some perspective?

This work is just a tiny part of a much larger, decades-long, global research effort by thousands of scientists (note lack of scare quotes) to try and take traditional medicine and other practices (including westerners: aspirin, for example), discover what works, how it works, and make that knowledge generally available.....

and then patent it (e.g. turmeric), so they can use it commercially. The patent then raises the specter of legal threats against the people who use it and have been using it traditiona

That's interesting, sexual reproduction is meant to increase genetic variation within a population and adapting to evolutionary changes. An animal that forgoes this process and clones itself to reproduce must of had genetic defects already weeded out from the gene pool at large. It might have perfectly adapted to survive in its surroundings, without experiencing harsh evolutionary demands.
If this lizard has been around for millions of years, it might be interesting to analyze genetic variance of individual lizards, and see how many original lines exist within the population. After all if they are clones, it's possible that the entire species is consisted of clones descended from ONE individual!
That's pretty rad stuff for the animal kingdom.

I was thinking the exact same thing as I read the article. Genetic diversity should increase a species ability to stick around which makes you think how unusual something like this is still around. There are other lizards that can perform "virgin birth" but even those species still reproduce sexually when permissible.

If cloning is the only way they reproduce, they either must be genetically perfect for their environment or their environment has resisted drastic change.

Cloning does not mean you must be perfect. The clone is genetically just as good as the parent, so you only must be able to live.

The big advantage of sexual reproduction is that you get much more combinations, i.e. you can combine your faults much better and carry around a much bigger amount of faults.

So clones are usually better, but only as long as the rules do not change. Once a fault gets a bonus because it gives you some immunity to some illness, the clones have a hard time, because they do not collect

Eh, there's not really anything such as genetically perfect, even for a specific environment. In evolution, the main value is "good enough". Sometimes maybe "prolific" like ants. Or sometimes "dominate", but that has it's own pitfalls like the super-shark that ate themselves out of an ecosystem.

But you do have a point. Sexual reproduction is typically faster to adapt then asexual reproduction.
I was going to say something along the lines of how a strain of bacteria is probably able to change a larger pe

On the other hand, there are probably less than a million Bison left in the world, and they taste MUCH better than cows or chicken. Being tasty might be a survival trait today in some parts of the world, for some species, but it's also been rather detrimental at times.

Highly detrimental. I should say "Tasty and manageable" in the future.

"We breed chicken/pig/cow to be a tasty treat. We're bred to eat that tasty meat."

With allergies and such we might find that we've restricted ourselves to very limited food choices. Even now I know people who have limitations on what food they can eat to such an extreme that I'm amazed they can live.

The survival trait seems to be "being tasty and easy to raise in great number". If that really is an evolutionary advantage in the long run remains to be seen. While the number of cattle, pigs and chicken greatly increased compared to the wild, the genetic diversity of their population strongly decreased. This is a severe disadvantage that hampers quick adaption should the conditions change. In case of the collapse of technological civilization, be it peak oil, nuclear war, an asteroid impact or the inevita

Dogs that go feral start from one of the many breeds that we have of dogs, yet once they interbreed in "the wild," they breed back true to form. All pigs that go feral, in a very short few generations, regain hair and dark pigmentation.

If humans ceased to exist tomorrow, the cattle, chickens and pigs that survive "the fall of man" will breed true to form and diversify quite easily. Huma

I agree that dogs and pigs will probably have the best chances. Dairy cows, on the other hand? Don't see much chance for them - they'll be dead within weeks in the wild given their milk overproduction and tendency to get a fresh udder infection every other week.

And that is the point of evolution. Out of those billions of cows there will be some that won't "get a fresh udder infection every other week" and they'll win the evolutionary lottery.

Don't kid yourself: the 1.53 billion cows quoted above is a very large number of cows; not only will some survive, but lots will survive in lots of areas -- enough to interact and to continue to survive generation to generation. (Though I try not to imagine the stench of 1.5299 billion dead cows!)

Sure thing - I completely agree that the domesticated species will survive. As you say, there are enough of them to retain sufficient diversity. Guess my point was indeed kinda trivial - the evolutionary advantage of lifestock is temporary, as all evolutionary advantages are. They are highly adapted to coexistence with human civilization. It still feels like a dead end niche, though.

It's a niche adaptation... and like all niche adaptations, it's useful for as long as the niche exists.

But the truly useful thing to being a tasty and easily domesticated animal is the fact that human beings will fling you to all corners of the planet so when the niche ceases to exist, there are cows all over the planet to test out their ability to adapt in a bunch of new niches.

Being widespread is a huge evolutionary advantage whether the niche ceases to exist or not.

No. Genetic variation still exists. Yeast produce asexually, but many strains exist, and new strains are developed all the time. Your statement is predicated on perfect genetic replication every time, which doesn't always happen. If that were the case, bacteria and virii would be eternally unchanging. Evolutionary changes are slower however, since they rely on mutations within a single organism, rather than mixing different genetic lines.

Was there not something recently about a snake that reproduced asexually even tho it had gender? Something about it mixing different eggs to produce much the same effect as when mixing a egg and a sperm?

And even single cell organisms can evolve "rapidly" if there is outside pressure. Hell, we already are seeing bacteria developing resistance to our most used ways of killing them. They may even be evolving that so fast that big pharma is uninterested in researching it, as the ROI will be to low...

There are actually a number of groups of asexual lizards like these. In the U.S. and Mexico, we have the genus Aspidoscelis (originally Cnemidophorus), known as whiptail lizards. There are about a dozen asexual species, each representing the hybridization of of a parrticular combination of sexual species. Some of the asexual species are even triploid, having chromosomes from three different species. (Most animals are diploid, with one set of chromosomes from each parent.) In Europe, they have the lacer

> Interestingly, the U.S., European, and now these Vietnamese species all look quite similar - don't know what that means.

First guess- their probably all the same genus, and it's likely a genus that is particularly suited to such asexually reproducing hybrids ? That in itself could be a survival trait on the level of the genus as a whole. If one or both of the parent species died out the clones may still survive as it has the best genetic benefits of both.

First guess- their probably all the same genus, and it's likely a genus that is particularly suited to such asexually reproducing hybrids ?

Good thought, but no - different families, even.

That in itself could be a survival trait on the level of the genus as a whole. If one or both of the parent species died out the clones may still survive as it has the best genetic benefits of both.

Except that the clones typically don't have the best genetic benefits of both parents, at least based on what we've seen. A genus with 10 sexual species probably has better odds of surviving than one with 5 sexual and 5 asexual species.

>Except that the clones typically don't have the best genetic benefits of both parents, at least based on what we've seen. A genus with 10 sexual species probably has better odds of surviving than one with 5 sexual and 5 asexual species.

There is certainly some variation in this - the article even mentions the classic example - mules are hardier than either horses or donkeys despite being sterile.

There are already documented species of lizards that reproduce sexually, except when the female is alone, in which case she can reproduce asexually. This is a huge advantage in repopulating burned out areas after forest fires. Reproducing only asexually would be a disadvantage in terms of adaptability, but being able to do both sexual and asexual reproduction is a huge advantage. I suspect they just haven't found any males of this species yet.

I think I speak for most Slashdotters when I say that hopefully scientists never find out what genes or other mechanisms allow these lizards to reproduce asexually and transplant them to humans. Because if they do, we're never gonna get laid.